The Contract Read online

  “I’ve got to admit, that’s pretty cool,” Derek said, grinning. He was batting .800! Sure, it was only two games, but it was something to be proud of and happy about!

  “Don’t think you’re always going to bat .800,” his dad warned. “You’ve got a pretty good swing, and a nice approach at the plate, but nobody stays that good for long in the game of baseball. Batting .300 in the pros will give you a good shot at the Hall of Fame. If you’re dreaming of being a pro, you’d better realize that right now.”

  After dinner, Derek headed straight toward the stairs to go to his room.

  “You okay?” his mom wondered as she saw him go.

  “I’m fine! Gonna do some math.”

  “Great! Just checking.”

  He ran upstairs and got out a pencil and paper.

  Derek knew he might never get to play shortstop for the Tigers that season. But there was one thing that was in his power to make happen.

  Come whatever, he was going to outscore Gary on their next math test!

  Chapter Nine

  THE MIGHTY YANKEES

  Winter finally turned to spring in Kalamazoo. The snow piles were now puddles. Flowers and buds came out on all the trees and bushes. Kids shed their coats and went around in sweaters or just their shirts.

  And, incredibly, the Tigers won their next two games! They beat a terrible Marlins team, 16–13. Then they beat the Dodgers, who were even worse, with a score of 18–9.

  Both of those games took a long time because there were so many walks, hits, and runs scored by both sides. The Tigers were hitting weak pitchers well, but they weren’t getting any better out in the field. Pete continued to make errors, and so did everybody else. Even Derek muffed a grounder once, ruining his perfect fielding percentage. The thing was, nobody on the team seemed to notice that Pete was playing poorly at short, because they were making just as many errors.

  The main thing keeping the Tigers happy was that they were winning. And they were winning because they were hitting. Boy, were they hitting! Pete had six homers in their first four games. But he wasn’t the only one. Ryan, Sims, and Isaiah all had homers. Chris was getting hits that became doubles because he was so fast. Even Vijay got a single, after which he did a little dance of triumph on the first-base bag!

  Derek had to admit he liked having Pete hit right after him. It meant pitchers didn’t want to walk him and have to face Pete with a runner on base. Derek had done the math: Pete was the Tigers’ home runs leader, but Derek was their leader in on-base percentage (OBP), stolen bases (nine for nine!), and, thanks to Pete, runs scored. But he wished he could hit homers like Pete did.

  Derek’s dad took him to the batting cages whenever they both had a free hour at the same time. He tried to show Derek how to add more power to his swing by putting more weight on his back foot. But it wasn’t easy for Derek to change his swing and still hit the ball hard.

  “You know, you might need to grow into it,” his dad said. “Not everyone is built to hit a lot of home runs. You keep at it, and concentrate on solid contact. Hit the ball where it is. Remember, scoring runs is the name of the game.”

  Derek knew his dad was right. Still, it bothered him that he wasn’t the hitting hero of the team. Even worse, he was stuck on the wrong side of the infield.

  But even for Derek, winning took a lot of the sting out of his frustrations. The weak pitching of the Dodgers and Marlins had made great hitters out of all of them, and had given them a certain amount of shaky confidence—shaky because of the way they were still giving up runs.

  And now here came the Tigers’ biggest game of the season so far, the game that would put their confidence to its stiffest test yet.

  The mighty Yankees were undefeated. They hadn’t even had a close game. Two of their four victories had come via the mercy rule. From the moment they showed up at Westwood Fields that Saturday morning, their cocky confidence was obvious.

  Coach Kozlowski gathered the Tigers together. “Okay, kids,” he said. “Let’s show these guys we’re no pushovers! Let’s show them we can compete, that they can’t just walk all over us.”

  Derek frowned. In his opinion, this was no way to get the team fired up. They were out there to win, weren’t they? Not just compete? Making it their goal to not get stomped on wasn’t going to pump up anybody’s confidence.

  He could hear his dad’s voice in his head saying, It’s the coach’s decision. You just go out there and play the best you can. Don’t worry about anything else.

  Looking up into the stands, Derek found his dad, mom, and sister. He waved and smiled, and they waved and smiled back. He could hear Sharlee yelling, “Go, Derek! Hit a home run!”

  Jeez, Derek said to himself. Even Sharlee thought home runs were the most important thing! He went out to second base to warm up. The Yankees were up first, and Derek wondered where in the lineup his friends would be hitting.

  Ryan was on the mound to start the game, with Ernesto at first. Derek, Pete, and Sims rounded out the infield, with Isaiah catching, as always.

  In the outfield were Vijay in left, Mark in right, and Chris in center. Chris had become a fixture out there—a pretty good outfielder, even if his glove seemed two sizes too big for him. At least he caught the ball, or caught up with it quickly, and he had a good arm for a kid his size and weight.

  Derek got into his ready position, weight forward on the balls of his feet, just like his dad had taught him. He bounced up and down a little to get loose, then settled in to wait for the first pitch.

  Ryan was a fastballer, but the lefty swinger at the plate had real bat speed. He pulled Ryan’s pitch right down the first baseline past Ernesto, who saw the ball go by him before he could even react. The hitter ended up on second base.

  Next up was Derek’s buddy Jeff from Mount Royal. Jeff pointed his bat right at Derek, sort of saying Hello and We’re gonna beat you all in the same gesture.

  Derek grinned and shook his head. He’d known Jeff for years, and they were friends for sure. But that didn’t mean he’d forgotten that Jeff had laughed at Derek’s life’s dream. Far from it. Now Derek hoped he would get his chance to answer back in the best way possible—on the baseball field.

  Jeff smacked a line drive in Pete’s direction, but it was way over his head. In fact, it was over Vijay’s head too. But Vijay didn’t give up on the ball. He turned, ran, and reached up blindly, hoping against hope the ball would find his glove . . .

  And it did! The Tigers erupted in cheers as Vijay held up the ball triumphantly.

  Meanwhile, the runner had gone back to second base. But seeing that no one was paying attention, he made a sudden dash for third!

  Derek saw him and yelled to Vijay, “THIRD! THIRD!” But Vijay couldn’t hear him over the cheering and shouting. Even if he could have, he was still too amazed by the fact that he’d caught the ball to notice anything else. By the time he realized what was happening, the runner was coming home. Vijay threw the ball to Derek, but the runner beat the relay easily to make the score 1–0, Yankees.

  “Wake up out there!” Pete yelled to Vijay, who looked down and kicked the ground in shame.

  “Hey! The batter’s up!” Derek told Pete.

  “Focus on your own game,” grumbled Pete as he got back into position. “What kind of a relay was that?”

  There had been nothing wrong with the relay, and Derek knew it. He shook off Pete’s comment and concentrated on the next play.

  The next hitter up was Harry, another Mount Royal kid. Derek knew he could hit, but even he was impressed when Harry crushed a fastball deep, deep to right for an easy home run.

  Jason, another friend of Derek’s, was up next. He hit a triple, and Coach Kozlowski walked slowly to the mound to talk to Ryan and settle him down.

  It didn’t seem to help. Ryan walked the next two batters, and Coach had to come out again and make a pitchin
g change, switching Ryan with Ernesto at first. And it was only the first inning!

  But Ernesto, with his assortment of slow and slower pitches, kept the Yankee hitters off balance. They popped up twice to end the inning with the score still only 2–0.

  To Derek that felt like a miracle—although the Tigers had already lost one of their two pitchers, with five innings still to go. Now it was their chance to show the Yankees that they could hit, too.

  Except they couldn’t. The Yankees had great pitching as well as hitting. Jeff had told Derek he was a pitcher, but he wasn’t starting today. No, he was at shortstop.

  Jeff, shortstop for the Yankees. Pretty ironic, Derek thought bitterly. Wearing number 13, too, just to add to the misery.

  Harry was also the Yankees’ pitcher, and turned out to be the hardest thrower the Tigers had faced so far. You could barely see his pitches! Even worse, he got them over the plate more than half the time, so you couldn’t just stand there and hope he would walk you.

  He struck out Chris on three pitches. Derek, through sheer will and determination, fouled off what felt like a dozen pitches before finally getting an infield hit on a dribbler to third.

  He stole second on a close play, but it didn’t matter, because Pete struck out, and after a pair of walks to Ryan and Isaiah, Ernesto whiffed on a fastball to end the inning and the Tiger threat. Other than Derek, none of the Tigers had even made contact. Not even a foul ball.

  Sheesh, thought Derek as he grabbed his mitt. This could be a long day. . . .

  Luckily, Ernesto kept the Yankees from scoring in the top of the second. But the Tigers went down without scoring in their half of the second, with nothing more than a walk squeezed in between three more strikeouts.

  Ernesto was doing fine in the third, too—until Pete made a great dive for a ball in the hole, then threw to first when he had no chance to get the runner. The ball short-hopped Ryan, hit off his shoulder, and skittered out to right field. The runner went all the way to second, then scored on a bloop single to left. The Yankees had a three-run lead, and with their pitching, Derek knew it would be hard to catch up if the Tigers gave up any more runs.

  Fortunately, they didn’t—at least not that inning.

  Derek led off the third with a sharp single to right. It was the first hard-hit ball the Tigers had hit all day. Pete followed with a single to left, sending Derek to second.

  With a 1–2 count on Ryan, Derek took off for third. The throw from the catcher beat him there, but Derek slid under the tag. “Safe!” the umpire called.

  As Derek got up and began dusting himself off, he saw that somehow Pete had gotten himself in a rundown between first and second base!

  Derek knew Pete should have taken off for second base the minute he’d seen Derek going for third. Clearly, he’d waited too long and now was about to be tagged out.

  Derek saw an opportunity, though. Everyone’s eyes were on Pete, and no one was watching him. He scooted toward home and was halfway there before the Yankees realized what was happening. Derek slid, and the umpire yelled, “SAFE!”

  Pete was out, but Derek had stolen a run for the Tigers! They were back in the ball game now, down just 3–1.

  That was the way it stayed until the fifth inning. Ernesto had pitched a great game so far, saving the Tigers’ bacon in the first inning and holding the Yankees to just one run since then. He had to be tired, though. Derek wondered how much longer he could keep the Yankees from scoring again.

  The Tigers were down only two runs. If they could tie it up, or better yet, take the lead, it might be possible to steal this game from the mighty Yankees. Derek, leading off the fifth, knew this might be his last at bat of the day. He was determined to make the most of it.

  Jeff was pitching now. Derek knew Jeff had a good arm and was always around the plate with his pitches, but Derek had faced him a million times at the Hill. Jeff’s pitches were no mystery to him, so before trotting out onto the field, Derek called over Pete, Ryan, and Isaiah in the dugout to give them a quick heads-up about what they might face. Derek knew Jeff’s pitches tended to tail off to the right, so that’s where he swung. Not trying to hit a home run—just hitting it where it was, like his dad had told him.

  CRACK! The ball went sailing over the third baseman’s head and down the left field line! Derek made it to second, clapping his hands to urge his teammates on. He could hear his parents and Sharlee screaming from the stands, shouting their encouragement.

  But the Tigers and their fans went quiet as Pete struck out on three straight pitches, swinging for the fences when he should have just been trying to get a base hit to keep the rally going.

  Ryan then went down 0–2. Derek took off for third on the next pitch, and made it easily. He looked up just in time to see and hear the umpire call, “Strike three! Yer out!”

  Two outs now. “Come on, Isaiah,” Derek said under his breath. “COME ON!” he yelled, clapping his hands.

  Isaiah nodded, cocking his bat. Jeff threw his best fastball, and Isaiah popped it up to short right field. The first baseman ran back to get it, and the right fielder and second baseman both came over too.

  Derek knew there were two outs, so he didn’t wait to see if the ball was caught. He was already standing on home plate when the ball dropped between the three of them!

  “YESSS! Nice going, Isaiah!” he yelled, leaping up and down with his arms in the air. But the celebration was short-lived, as Isaiah, who’d kept on running when the ball had dropped, was caught by a good throw to second to end the inning with the score Yankees 3, Tigers 2.

  The Tigers had gotten back into the game, thank goodness. But they’d just lost a great chance to tie the score!

  In the top of the sixth, Jeff led off for the Yankees with a screamer over Derek’s head. Derek turned and leapt as high as he could, snagging the ball in the netting of his mitt. The ball almost came out, it had been hit so hard. But Derek managed to hang on to it, and as he looked at the sno-cone sticking out of the web of his mitt, he smiled.

  Derek heard Jeff yelling something at him angrily, but Derek just kept grinning. There was nothing sweeter than a little on-the-field revenge, and after waiting for six whole innings, he’d finally gotten it!

  The next batter walked. After a strikeout, Derek began to breathe a little easier. One more out . . .

  The runner on first tried to steal on the next pitch. The hitter grounded the ball to short. Pete moved to his right and snagged it—but instead of throwing to first for the sure out, he threw to second.

  Derek was covering on the attempted steal, but the runner got in before the throw, and by the time Derek wheeled and fired to first, the man was safe there, too!

  “Come on, Jeter!” Pete cried out, flapping his arms in frustration.

  “What? What’d I do?” Derek asked.

  Pete didn’t answer, because really there was nothing he could say. He was the one who’d thrown to the wrong base when he’d had a sure out at first.

  Derek thought he knew what had happened. Pete had forgotten how many outs there were and had been trying for a double play when there were already two outs!

  He thought that was what had happened, but he couldn’t be sure. Anyway, what was the use of talking about it? Right now they had a game that was about to get away from them. A game they had a chance to win, against the best team in the whole league!

  The next hitter put all such thoughts to rest, though. He hit a long ball past Chris in center, and all three runs scored on the homer.

  The Tigers came up in the bottom of the sixth, down now by four big runs. They got one runner on base when Ernesto doubled to left, but with the bottom of their order up, they didn’t have much of a chance against a pitcher as good as Jeff. He mowed down Sims and Elliott. But Vijay, batting ninth, somehow got his bat on an 0–2 fastball for a dribbler down the first baseline. He beat the throw, givin
g himself some bragging rights back at Mount Royal, but more important, giving the Tigers some hope.

  Slightly rattled, Jeff walked Chris to load the bases. Here was Derek’s chance to be the hero. He knew Jeff wouldn’t give him anything too good to hit, and thought he might try a fastball on the outside part of the plate. And that’s what Derek got. He hit the ball on the button . . . right at the Yankees’ first baseman.

  It was a loss, but at least the Tigers put a scare into the Yankees. Coach was right. They did compete.

  Derek stood in the line to shake hands with the Yankees. Jeff grinned as he got to Derek. “I thought you had me there.”

  “Well, yeah, but you guys did win the game, so . . .”

  “Yeah, we did, didn’t we! Oh well. Good luck from here on in.”

  It was the usual back-and-forth. But this time it stung a little more than Derek wanted to admit.

  Derek stole a glance at Coach Kozlowski. He and a bunch of the kids were putting the equipment back into the duffel bags. Pete was not one of them. He was sitting alone on the end of the bench, pouting about the game.

  Derek noticed the coach staring at his son. Coach seemed to be deep in thought, stroking his chin. Then he turned, and his gaze found Derek. Then it went back to Pete.

  Hmmm . . .

  Derek wondered if his own fielding feats at second, as well as Pete’s poor play at shortstop (not to mention his attitude), had finally made an impression on the coach.

  Nah, it was probably too much to hope for. “Do your own job,” his dad had told him, “and let the coach do his.”

  Sighing, Derek let go of it and headed for the stands, where his family was always waiting for him with open arms, win or lose.

  Chapter Ten

  PARENTS AND TEACHERS

  “. . . and how much do you think this swanky new eight-track stereo system goes for?”

  Derek and his dad were watching TV. The Price Is Right, to be exact. The show had become a mini-obsession for the two of them.